Remembering Family, Family Jr., WildBrainTV and Télémagino

WildBrain's 4 linear TV channels in Canada, Family, Family Jr., WildBrainTV and Télémagino have officially shut down for good as of 6am Eastern Time this morning.

The reason that i've mentioned in my special bulletin back in August is because the company failed to negotiate a new carriage agreement with the 2 largest TV providers in Canada, Bell (Fibe, Satellite, TV App, Virgin Plus TV), and Rogers (Digital Cable, Xfinity TV, Shaw Direct plus their former cable systems in Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario).

The long-running Family Channel first debuted on September 1st, 1988 at 6am Eastern and Mountain Time with a message from the late Susan Rubes, the channel's 1st president, leading into the channel's first program, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was an anime series produced by the company's predecessors, Cinar.

When Canada's Family Channel first hit the airwaves in 1988, the majority of the programs were from the Walt Disney Company's programming library, until Corus Entertainment scooped the rights to most Disney programs in 2015, which gave the company more Disney programs than ever, in addition to the now-defunct ABC Spark.

When a new wave of specialty channels launched in the fall of 1997, most domestic cable and satellite providers started offering the Family Channel under the 3rd tier of their provider's package.

But on October 1, 1999, the long-running logo with a modified Folio Bold font replaced the original logo that the channel first hit the airwaves in 1988, the long-running logo was designed by Pittard Sullivan, and on the same day, the time zone for the channel's west feed was changed to Pacific, to match rivals YTV and Teletoon (now Cartoon Network) at that time.

In that same month, as part of the break-up of Western International Communications — which had bought Allarcom—its stake in Family Channel was sold to Corus Entertainment, but in March 2001, in response to complaints by the CRTC over its near-monopoly on ownership of children's specialty channels in Canada (citing YTV, Treehouse TV, and Teletoon), Corus sold its stake in Family Channel to Astral Media for $126.9 million, which would stay that way until the Bell-Astral merger was announced in March 2012, then approved over a year later which would force Family and the other sister channels that were put up for sale concurrently being placed in a blind trust held by businessman and former Montreal Canadiens president Pierre Boivin, pending their sale to a third-party.

Fast forward to November 2013, when Family and their sister channels would be sold to their final owner, DHX Media (now WildBrain) for $170 million, the sale was approved by the CRTC on July 24, 2014, then finalized exactly a week later.

By November 2016, Family started to air commercial advertising during the afternoon hours, but gradually increased their advertising hours to the whole broadcast day, until the 4 channels stopped broadcasting commercials a month prior to the shutdown, making them commercial-free channels again.

Family Jr. launched on November 30, 2007 as the Playhouse Disney Channel, initially on Bell ExpressVu (now Bell Satellite TV) and various cable companies, but expanded to include Rogers and Shaw (the 2 companies that were merged in 2023) 3 years after the launch, but their French-language version debuted on July 5, 2010, starting also on Bell Satellite TV until Cogeco and Videotron started to carry the channel a few months after the French-language version was launched.

Both English and French versions of the Playhouse Disney Channel lasted until May 5, 2011, when both of their English and French versions were also rebranded as Disney Junior the following day, keeping it in line with their American counterpart, but on September 18, 2015, both English and French language versions of Disney Junior were rebranded as Family Jr. and Télémagino, respectively, again due to the company's expiration of Disney programs at the end of 2015.

WildBrainTV first debuted on June 1, 2011 as Disney XD, when the channel first launched, it was the only channel within the company to air commercial advertisements, until expanding it to Family and Family Jr. in November 2016, as part of the CRTC's Let's Talk TV initiative.

But, on October 9, 2015, the channel was renamed to Family CHRGD, once again due to the company's expiration of Disney programs at the end of 2015, and the channel rebranded again as WildBrainTV, on March 1, 2022, during the channel's free preview period.

These channel closures came exactly a month after 5 Corus specialty channels aimed at youths were also shut down and 2 years after their former sister station, Vrak ceased transmissions due to Quebec cable company Vidéotron removed the channel along with sister station Z back in August 2023.

Our hearts go out to the employees who worked at these channels over the past 37 years, including Lindsay Hamilton (now at TSN), as well as Deepa Prashad (now at Toronto's CKFM-FM) and these channels will forever be missed across the Canadian Kids & Family broadcasting communities.